A little-known Chinese herb might be eligible for the growing list of alternative cancer treatments. According to studies published in Life Sciences, Cancer Letters, and Anticancer Drugs, artemesinin, a derivative of the wormwood plant commonly used in Chinese medicine, can kill off cancer cells and do it at a rate of 12,000 cancer cells for every healthy cell.

Henry Lai and his team of researchers from the University of Washington synthesized the compound, which uses a cancer cell’s appetite for iron, to make only these diseased cells the target. The great thing about artemisinin is that alone it can selectively kill cancer cells while leaving normal cells unharmed.

By itself, artemisinin is about 100 times more selective in killing cancer cells as opposed to normal cells. Artemisinin is 34,000 times more potent in killing the cancer cells as opposed to their normal cousins. So the tagging process appears to have greatly increased the potency of artemisinin’s cancer-killing properties.